---
title: "Book Brew 193: Instagram Loved Us Most When We Left. Rude"
description: Evaluate social media effectiveness for your business, prioritize your time, and pivot strategies based on meaningful engagement data.
image: https://thoughtsbrewing.com/hubfs/Mindful%20Musings.jpg
---

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# Book Brew 193: Instagram Loved Us Most When We Left. Rude

 October 19, 2026

![Picture of Danielle Price Griffin](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/31045232924d123af765cd9b1925a9ce) [Danielle Price Griffin](https://thoughtsbrewing.com/blog/author/danielle)

![Book Brew](https://thoughtsbrewing.com/hubfs/Mindful%20Musings.jpg)

Our most engaging Instagram post was the one we posted over a year ago announcing we were leaving the platform (read [Book Brew 152](https://thoughtsbrewing.com/blog/book-brew-152-goodbye-instagram-the-odds-were-not-in-your-favor) for details).

Apparently, the algorithm heard “we’re done” and yelled, “WAIT, I CAN CHANGE!” like a bad breakup.

Others replied that they wished they could leave too because they hate the platform but felt stuck there, feeding it content like it's Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors (“Feed me, Seymour!”).

I felt their pain and frustration because I’d spent plenty of time trying to make IG work for my photography business before we started TB.

With Thoughts Brewing, we were putting time into Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky, and who knows what else without seeing much meaningful engagement, leads, or conversions to justify keeping them all going.

While our farewell post performed beautifully, it didn’t change our minds on our path forward and looking back 13 months later, we made the right call.

## Congratulations on the engagement. Did it do anything?

A popular post *(you know the ones full of those pretty vanity metrics people often brag about)* tells you that people reacted to a popular post. Riveting analysis, I know.

It may also tell you something useful. The replies to our goodbye post revealed that other owners felt trapped on a platform they disliked, which was finally a conversation I was glad to have with fellow business owners. But it wasn’t a reason to restart our content schedule and hope the algorithm had undergone a permanent personality change.

> “Attention is scarce and fragile.”<https://calnewport.com/on-digital-minimalism/?utm_source=chatgpt.com>- Cal Newport

Pretty much all social media platforms can give you attention, but if you look closely, you’ll see it tends to consume far more of your own attention. For a two-person business, the hours spent making posts, checking responses, and wondering whether a reel needs a different cover are hours we cannot spend elsewhere.

## Let AI look at the whole picture

Rather than asking: *“Did this post get engagement?”*

You are better off asking: *“What was this channel supposed to do for our business, and is it doing enough of that to earn the time we spend on it?”*

You can investigate that question without manually squinting at twelve dashboards until the numbers begin to resemble a Magic Eye poster *(haha, funny story, Damien can’t see the hidden image in those!).*

### Try This

- Download the analytics available from the platforms you use.
- Gather the business data you can reasonably connect to them: website referrals, inquiry forms, booked calls, email signups, purchases, business plans, budgets, client records, and an estimate of the time spent creating and managing content.
- Add notes about anything the exports miss, such as a valuable conversation that moved to email.

Then give the files to a tool that can work across them, such as ChatGPT Work or Claude Cowork.

Start by telling it what each file contains and what you were trying to accomplish.

Then ask it to examine the pattern across a meaningful period, not merely rank the ten posts that got the most reactions.

#### For example:

*“We use these channels to reach potential clients and start conversations that may lead to paid work.*

*Compare each channel’s content performance with referral traffic, inquiries, bookings, and our estimated hours spent. Identify which conclusions the data supports, which links between a post and a sale are uncertain, and what information is missing. Treat unusually popular posts separately from the typical pattern.*

*Recommend whether to continue, change our approach, reduce our effort, or leave each channel. Show the evidence and strongest counterargument for every recommendation.”*

That last instruction matters. If the AI tool you are using recommends abandoning a channel, you probably want to know what case it can make for staying. If it tells you a channel is thriving because a post got a pile of comments, ask it to explain where those people went next.

### AI can help reconcile the files and challenge your interpretation

It cannot turn an unknown lead source into a known one or accurately value time you never tracked. Make it label those gaps instead of filling them with confidence and jazz hands.

## Even the trolls are data

We get troll comments on YouTube videos, and yes, we laugh at them.

Negative engagement can still contribute to a video’s reach and ad revenue → Someone watched enough to type something, hit Send, and perhaps return later to see whether we took the bait. The platform can count that activity. We can laugh at it.

But these hateful comments can teach us something more useful than “people on the internet remain people on the internet.”

They can show us who the video is attracting who isn’t our intended audience.

If a video repeatedly brings in viewers who want an argument about whether anyone should use AI at all, and we made it to help small teams use a particular tool, that mismatch is worth examining.

- Did the title promise a debate?
- Did the thumbnail attract the wrong curiosity?
- Did the opening fail to say who the video was for?

We can compare those comments with the questions from viewers we do want to reach.

Then we can adjust the next

- video topic,
- Video length,
- title,
- thumbnail,
- description,
- or opening so the right people recognize the video sooner.

That doesn’t mean we ignore all comments, views, or spikes. They can raise good questions. If a video brings in thoughtful questions, helps someone solve a problem, or starts a conversation with a potential client, we want to know.

## Pivot without dragging the couch up another flight

> “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”<https://gregmckeown.com/if-you-dont-prioritize-your-life-someone-else-will-harvard-business-review-2/?utm_source=chatgpt.com>- Greg McKeown

In this case, that someone may be a platform rewarding the exact activity that keeps you feeding it.

Your analysis might tell you to stay and change the content. It might tell you to post less, direct people toward an email list, focus on a different audience, or leave a channel altogether. Make a small change, decide what result would justify continuing, and check again after enough time to learn something.

And if the evidence says the couch does not fit up the stairs, you are allowed to PIVOT! You’re also allowed to stop carrying the couch.

Instagram gave us one last good post. We took the laugh, listened to the people who responded, and left anyway.

## PONDER THIS

1. If you compared your channels by the clients, conversations, and opportunities they produce per hour of effort, which one would still earn a place in your week?

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- Essentialsm - Greg McKeown
- Deep Work - Cal Newport

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